The pairings of Christian Alshon/Andrei Daescu and Ben Johns/Gabe Tardio surged into the men’s doubles final with victories on Saturday afternoon.

Alshon/Daescu—fresh off their first title together a few weeks ago in Tucson—knocked out the top-seeded tandem of Hayden Patriquin/Federico Staksrud 4-11, 11-5, 11-5.

The No. 4 seeds dropped the opening game by a large margin, but they didn’t let the slow start keep them down.

They completely turned the tide of the encounter from there and comfortably took Games 2 and 3 by identical score lines to make their second straight final on the PPA Tour.

Alshon and Daescu are two of the tallest players on tour, with Alshon standing at 6'2" and Daescu at 6'4". Daescu spoke about the advantages—and challenges—that come with having more length than most other players on the court.

“We try to take advantage of it the best we can,” he said. “Having that length helps you at the start of the point because you can reach in and flick a lot of balls to make your opponents’ transition as complicated as possible, but once they settle in at the kitchen line, obviously it’s a lot harder for tall guys like us to get down and play those low balls.”

Alshon and Daescu are in pursuit of their second title together, but they’ll have to beat the first-time pairing of Ben Johns/Gabe Tardio to leave Mesa with a crown.

Johns/Tardio earned a comfortable 11-4, 11-7 victory over No. 3 seeds Pablo Tellez/Dylan Frazier in the second semifinal in one of the day’s more one-sided contests.

The No. 2 seeds were pushed to the brink by the lefty-righty combination of Tyler Loong/Connor Garnett in the quarterfinals, but they found their groove against another lefty-righty duo on Saturday night.

“I think I was rolling my dinks a little more,” Tardio said of how the two matches contrasted with each other. “We were playing a little more to the lefty tonight, rather than having Ben go crosscourt with Dylan on the left, and I think that allowed Ben to be a little more involved as well off of my dinks as well. I think that was the main difference.”

Johns/Tardio will look to start their partnership off with a gold medal on Sunday.